State of Play: Waterloo Solitaire Boardgame

  

 

 

I had a free hour-and-a-half on Tuesday, so I took Waterloo Solitaire Boardgame Edition (Worthington Publishing. 2023 – an unboxing can be found here) out for a turn. I haven’t played the Waterloo Solitaire Book Game (Worthington Publishing, 2021) on which this was base, but I understand it’s a pretty faithful interpretation of the original.

The Veteran Allied Actions card, mounted on its easel. I thought during the Kickstarter
campaign that it was a bit of a gimmick, but now I'm absolutely sold on the easel.

Let’s be clear from the start; this is not a faithful recreation of the nuances of the pivotal battle that conclusively drew a line Napoleon’s martial ambitions. Waterloo Solitaire is definitely positioned close to the “Game” end of the Simulation/Game continuum, and it makes no apologies for that. The original book games were conceived in the time of lockdowns and enforced isolation and brought a brief reprieve from ennui to thousands of people.

This was my first time out, so there were plastic bags to tear open and pieces to locate. I’d already split the single card-deck into it’s constituent sets of Allied and French cards. I’d settled on playing as the French because looking at the victory conditions, it seemed Napoleon would have a slightly tougher time of it. This wasn’t my first rodeo with a Worthington solitaire game, so I knew not to expect to win on the first time out (or the second, or the eighteenth, maybe). Even being the first time out, set-up still took less than ten minutes (probably closer to five; I didn’t check my watch).

The initial set-up and my opening hand; a good spread of options to start with.

The game has two adjustment points for difficulty, hand size (and what I think of as opponent-difficulty (each side has three levels of resolve; Challenging, Veteran and Tough). I intended to play the middle-path, but inadvertently make things a little tougher on myself, something I’ll come back to later.

Each turn, the player selects an Order Card to play from his hand, placing it face-up in a conspicuous place. He then rolls for the Bot action; on a 2-5, the Bot chooses an action eerily prescient of the player’s chosen order, seemingly calculated to mitigate or nullify the effect of the order before it can be played at least a third of the time. I know how this sounds; I don’t have the mathematical chops to model how this is possible. I don’t think Worthington solitaire games are somehow cursed. But a slither of doubt lingers. We'll have to see how a second game plays out.

Case in point. Three times in the course of the game I played a Fire Artillery order.
In response, the Bot "rollled" Reverse Slope Tactics for two of those orders,
nullifying those potential hits. It's like the game and the die are in cahoots. 

An inauspicious beginning

In my first turn, I decided to lead with the First Corps. Before the First and Second Corps can attack their corresponding Allied infantry Wings, they first have to deal with the garrisons at La Haye Saint and Hougoumont respectively, much like the British facing the Mill in Freeman’s Farm 1777 (Worthington Publishing, 2019). In that first turn I lost two blocks from the First Corps, one from a roll of five on the Allied Actions matrix – Allied Artillery Fire – and one from the stout defence put up by the 2nd Light Infantry Battalion of the King’s German Legion. This opening set the tone for what was to come. It would take assaults over four turns to clear the eastern chateau, and another two against Hougoumont, at a terrible cost in troops.

Combat is brutal in Waterloo Solitaire, and the odds are weighted against the player, or at least that’s how it seems when you’re the player. As a rule, the French score hits on low rolls, the Allies on high rolls. Add to this the nearly ubiquitous +2 modifier on many of the Allied orders, and in many cases the best the French player can hope for is a one-for-one hit exchange. This sounds like a complaint; it’s not meant to be – it’s just an observation. The game should be challenging (the lowest rated Bot matrix is called “Challenging”); if the game was easily won, you’d lose interest very quickly.

End of turn five. Already, things aren't looking good for the French.

The first Prussians arrived in turn four. The next turn, I sent the Reserves to check their progress, only to lose two blocks to the Allied cavalry (on a roll of the Cavalry Charge order, the Allied cavalry pre-emptively attacks whichever French formation has been ordered for that turn), then a third in an exchange.

Around the middle of the game – turn eight or nine, I sent the Old Guard out against La Haye Sainte, then again two turns later. The first time they were beaten back with heavy losses. The second – two turns later – they sacrificed themselves to clear the chateau in an exchange of hits. In between, Blucher had begun to arrive in force. If there are seven or more Prussian blocks on the board at the end of a turn, that’s an automatic win for the Allies. In the course of the game, I rolled a favourable one once. Every other one on a die roll came up on the Allied roll, and they seemed to come in pairs, inviting more and more Prussians to the party.

 

The end of the battle

Going into turn sixteen, having cleared Hougoumont and La Haye Saint, I was ready to make my final assault on the Allied lines. My Reserve and Imperial Guard had both lost all cohesion and withdrawn from the field of battle, both having sustained terrible losses at the hands of la belle Alliance. My First Corps was down to two blocks and my Second Corps had been reduced to a single block, but my two cavalry wings were both more or less intact; in the face of adversity, I thought a Je vous salue, Marie may just see the French carry the day. With three turns left victory was a tantalising mirage for a dying man.

I played a Cavalry Charge order. Intending to try to sweep up the Allied Right Wing and clear the way in the next turn to vanquish the Left Wing. Rolling for the Allies resulted in a result of one, followed by another one rolled on the Tactical Events table – Blucher Leads the Way. Two more Prussian units arrived in the woods, triggering an attack on the First Corps (the Prussians convincingly outnumbering the French). A To-Hit roll of five (with +2 modifier, of course) put an end to Napoleon’s Imperial dreams once and or all.

Final state. The Allies lose the game in a turn when two formations - Left Wing,
Right Wing or Reserves - are destroyed, but the French lose if either Corps is
vanquished, which is what happened, thanks to Blucher's (un)timely arrival. 

Mistakes were made

The hand-size difficulty adjustment is meant to limit player options in a given turn. The difficulty levels here are as follows; seven-card hand for Rookie, six for Experienced, and five for the Grognard. I didn’t check this when I set up for play, and misremembered the Experienced level being five cards, so I ended up playing a tougher game than intended, though I don’t think the extra card would have made much difference in light of my die-rolling and the lack of use of my Combined Arms option. This was another mistake. I declined from using the Combined Arms in the early turns, then I kind of slipped into a routine of card plays and ignored the option (this is the kind of mistake you make early and just once). Honestly, I don’t think they would have helped me keep both Corps in good order with the 5s and 6s the Wellington Bot kept scoring against my formations.

One game isn't enough to begin exploring strategies or testing tactical advantages, and it's easier to see mistakes after you've made them. The more time spent with Waterloo Solitaire, the better the odds of not losing so catastrophically. But that's what keeps bringing me back to games like this, the prospect or hope of not losing the same way twice. 

*****

So, the game was indeed an inauspicious introduction to Waterloo Solitaire. I expected to lose, but I’d hoped to lose in the last round, not two rounds early. The game is tough, even at a fairly moderate setting. Next time out I will stick to the Grognard (five-card) hand-size, but try the Challenging Allied order matrix rather than the Veteran. I’ll also make judicious use of the Combined Arms option, to cancel out the near ubiquitous +2 modifiers applied to so many of the French To-Hit rolls.

I only had enough time for a single game this time out; with every other Worthington solo game I’ve played, I’ve immediately reset it for a second inevitable loss straight after my first. I’ll be getting Waterloo Solitaire back to the table sooner rather than later, though There are other games also vying for my attention at the moment. But it’s a comparatively short experience, definitely playable inside of an hour, so I‘m sure I’ll be able to squeeze it in somewhere.